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Radiation in US rainwater likely from Japan
Health officials said Sunday that one sample of Massachusetts rainwater has registered very low concentrations of radiation, most likely from the Japanese nuclear power plant damaged earlier this month by an earthquake and tsunami.
John Auerbach, the Massachusetts commissioner of public health, said that the radioactive isotope iodine-131 found in the sample – one of more than 100 that have been taken around the country – has a short life of only eight days. He said the drinking water supply in the state was unaffected and officials do not expect any health concerns.
Nevada, California, Hawaii, Colorado and Washington state have also reported tiny amounts of radiation from the Japan Read more…
China’s Drinking Water Crisis
The quality of China’s tap water was raised on World Water Day. Reports and statements by professionals all point to a drinking water crisis.
Despite a five-year period given water companies to comply with higher governmental sanitary standards for drinking water running out on July 1, 2012, pollution of drinking water and drinking water sources remain a serious issue in China.
Li Wei, secretary of China’s Environmental Protection Foundation (EPF), said that in 2007, 27.6 percent of China’s surface water quality fell into class 5, the lowest according to the Water Quality Index, making it basically unusable.
Li said the overall pollution level of China’s seven natural hydraulic systems was “medium,” based on the EPF’s River Pollution Index’s four categories–none, slight, medium, and serious.
According to China’s 2nd National Water Assessment report, 35.6 percent of drinking water in China is not drinkable. Read more…
India Seeks Longer-Range Ballistic Missile
India is working on a new ballistic missile that could travel more than 3,000 miles, the Press Trust of India reported on Friday (see GSN, Jan. 5).
“India has reached an appreciable level of competence in missile technologies, with a reach capability of” 2,175 miles, Defense Minister A.K. Antony said during a gathering of Defense Research and Development Organization laboratory chiefs. The organization is now pursuing a version of the nuclear-capable Agni missile that could fly roughly 3,100 miles, he added. Informed insiders said the Agni 5 would be test-launched sometime in 2011.
India continues to work on other versions of its Agni series. An Agni 3 missile with a flight range of about 2,175 miles was successfully test-fired not long ago from a launch site. Other Agni missile variants have traveling distances between 435 and 1,553 miles.
The Defense Research and Development Organization also prepared the Prithvi missile series, whose missiles can travel as far as 217 miles.
Antony called on DRDO scientists to increase the pace of trials for ballistic missile defense interceptors (Press Trust of India/The Hindu, March 25).
Seven Reasons We’re Buying a Home and Four Reasons We’re Not
Although the housing bubble and bust may have shattered notions that home prices have nowhere to go but up, Americans haven’t lost their love for owning a home. In the latest Allstate/National JournalHeartland Monitor poll, homeownership ranked second, just behind raising a family, in people’s definition of the American Dream. Despite new home sales’ drop to a record low, about four-fifths of respondents said that owning a home is still a better financial decision than renting, and nearly nine in 10 homeowners say would buy their home again.
Those results also underscore the extent to which Americans see buying a home as a deeply personal decision. It seems the decision to buy a home is made from the heart, while the decision to rent comes from the wallet.
That is a great way to look at the situation. Most people want to buy and own. Those who look rationally at the costs often chose to rent, not because it’s the most emotionally pleasing choice, but because it’s the most financially sound decision. Those who chose to rent recognize that being house poor is its own form of Read more…
Everett, Washington Fissure
Wind and waves growing across globe: study
Photo by Todd Binger
(PhysOrg.com) — Oceanic wind speeds and wave heights have increased significantly over the last quarter of a century according to a major new study undertaken by ANU Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian Young.
Girl Scout Cookies On Their Own Front Lawn
Once upon a time in America, if you were a couple of little girls and you wanted to sell lemonade or girl scout cookies at a little stand in front of your home nobody would give you any problems. In fact, most of the people passing by would have smiled and would have seen it as a sign of hope that the next generation was being so industrious. Well, that is not the way that it works anymore. Today, all across America nightmarish control freaks are seeking to micromanage every single aspect of our lives. That includes banning young girls from selling girl scout cookies on their own front lawns. Yes, you read that correctly. In Missouri of all places, two young girls named Abigail and Caitlin Mills were recently taught a lesson on how to be good citizens in the emerging totalitarian control grid going up all over the United States. After a complaint from a neighbor, the city of Hazelwood cracked down on the two girls and told them that they must shut down the girl scout cookie stand that they had been operating in their front yard.
So were the girls doing anything wrong? No. There are very few things that are more Read more…
NASA’s buzz about comet Elenin
IMAGE: NASA JPL
NASA posted a video on their website Buzzroom last week, bringing attention to a recently discovered comet in our solar system. The comet was discovered by Russian astronomer Leonid Elenin in December last year. Comet Elenin, as it is called, is of particular interest to NASA because of the close proximity to Earth that its orbit will reach during its turn around the sun on its way back out through the solar system later this year.
Most orbits of planets are not circles; they are ellipses. The elongated ends of elliptical orbits are called aphelions and perihelions; the aphelion being the end farthest away from the stationary object being orbited, and perihelion being the end closest to the stationary object. In Elenin’s case, its trip around our sun represents the comet’s perihelion.
So little is known about this comet because of its relatively recent-discovery status, therefore, Read more…
High Gas Prices May Turn Suburbs Into Slums
Americans rarely think much about zoning, but it governs almost every facet of how we live our lives. And unintended consequences of 50-year-old zoning codes may be about to turn some of our loveliest and quietest suburbs into the next slums.
Why? Simply because they’ve been built too far away from everything else, and we won’t be able to afford the gasoline it takes to go to and fro.
Suburbs: slums of the future?
At least, that’s the provocative conclusion of Peter Newman, one of the authors of a study released by the Planning Institute of Australia late last year.
The study looks at the future of suburban Australia, which has evolved in patterns very much like suburban America: sprawling, low-density, auto-dependent residential enclaves miles away from commercial areas and office parks.
“Urban sprawl is finished,” Newman told The Age. “If we continue to roll out new land releases and suburbs that are car-dependent, they will become the slums of the future.”
Following World War II, with the rise of affordable automobiles, cheap fuel and an increasingly Read more…
Large-Scale Assessment Of The Arctic Ocean: Significant Increase In Freshwater Content Since 1990s
The freshwater content of the upper Arctic Ocean has increased by about 20 percent since the 1990s. This corresponds to a rise of approx. 8,400 cubic kilometres and has the same magnitude as the volume of freshwater annually exported on average from this marine region in liquid or frozen form. This result is published by researchers of the Alfred Wegener Institute in the journal Deep-Sea Research. The freshwater content in the layer of the Arctic Ocean near the surface controls whether heat from the ocean is emitted into the atmosphere or to ice. In addition, it has an impact on global ocean circulation.
Differences in the mean salinity of the Arctic Ocean above the 34 isohaline between 2006 to 2008 and 1992 to 1999.
Negative values are shown in yellow, green, and blue and stand for an increase of freshwater.
Image: Benjamin Rabe, Alfred Wegener Institute Read more…
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